The Jews of Orșova: A Community in the Border Town Drowned by the Danube

Orșova, a border town on the Danube at the entrance to the Iron Gates gorge, was closed to Jews until the 19th century. Once it opened, a small Neolog community of merchants, craftsmen and professionals grew up there, with a synagogue and a rabbi. The old town where the community lived has since been covered by the waters of the dam lake, and what remains is the walled Jewish cemetery on a slope above the town.

A Border Town Opens

Until 1918 Orșova was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, a border town on the Danube. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, because of its status as a border town Jewish settlement was barred there until the first half of the 19th century. Jewish merchants and craftsmen then arrived, mostly from western Hungary.

A Neolog Community and a Synagogue

According to the encyclopaedia, the community was founded in 1876 in the old town and joined the Neolog stream, the moderate branch of Hungarian Jewry. A synagogue was built in 1878. The oldest gravestone in the cemetery dates from 1879, according to the encyclopaedia, or from 1880, according to the JewishGen survey.

Between the two world wars, with Orșova now in Romania, the community prospered, according to the encyclopaedia: it included merchants, craftsmen, physicians and lawyers, and Zionist activity expanded. From 1928 to 1945 its rabbi was K. Löwenkopf, who later emigrated to the Land of Israel. The 1930 census counted 192 Jews in the town.

1940–1944: On the Romanian Side

Orșova was not among the territories handed to Hungary under the Second Vienna Award of 1940, and Yad Vashem’s Pinkas HaKehillot Romania lists it among the communities of Southern Transylvania. Its Jews lived through the war under the Antonescu regime, with no ghetto and no deportation to Auschwitz. According to the final report of the Wiesel Commission, 84,042 Jews in Romania were registered for forced labour, and a plan to deport the Jews of the Regat and southern Transylvania to Bełżec, which the regime agreed to in 1942, was never carried out.

In Orșova itself, according to the encyclopaedia, Jewish property was confiscated in September 1942, many men were conscripted for forced labour, and others were deported to Transnistria. In 1942, 135 Jews remained in the town.

After the War, and the Drowned Town

After the war the community shrank fast. According to the encyclopaedia, 10 Jews lived in Orșova in 1947 and 20 in 1970; the rest emigrated to Israel and elsewhere. The last known burial in the cemetery, according to the JewishGen survey, was in 1994.

From 1964 the Iron Gates I dam was built on the Danube. According to Adevărul, the lake’s waters also covered the old core of Orșova, and thousands of residents were moved to the new town, to Drobeta-Turnu Severin and to settlements on the slopes. The old town, where the community was founded, is gone, and we found no source on any remains of the synagogue.

The Cemetery

The Federation’s 2007 list of Jewish cemeteries records a Jewish cemetery in Orșova. According to the 2001 survey of JewishGen’s Cemetery Discovery Project:

• Location: on an urban slope, near other cemeteries, reached from a public road.
• Size and stones: about 60 by 53 metres; between 20 and 100 marble and granite stones, some double and some with relief decoration, inscribed in Hebrew, German, Romanian and Hungarian.
• Condition: a masonry wall and gate, with an empty pre-burial house inside. According to the survey, the authorities cleaned the site and the town hall held a key. Occasional vandalism was recorded in the decade before the survey.

Visiting

• Cemetery: in Orșova, according to the Federation’s list (no address). No visiting hours are published; confirm the location and access in advance.
• Arrangements: the Orșova community is attached to the Jewish Community of Craiova (the Jewish Community of Oltenia), Strada Horezului 5, according to the Federation.
• On the way: Orșova lies on the Danube between Drobeta-Turnu Severin and the Cazane gorge, and can be combined with a drive along the river.